Monthly Archives: November 2006

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OOB (Out of Blogging) today, and maybe (maybe not) tomorrow. I am not feeling well these days, after caught in the rain last night, and my stomach does not feel good. I am going bed now, and hope to take a short (no longer than two days) in blogging.

If you are coming to Shanghai these days, be aware that Shanghai is really cold. It rains (for many days), and the temperature drops to 8°C. Today, we turned on warm air-con for the first time this winter.

So bring rain coat, and bring warm cloths with you if you plan to visit Shanghai.

At 6:30 PM, it rained, and there were no taxi at all on street. I tried to call taxi reservation hotline, for example, 62580000 for Jinjiang, and 968222 for Dazhong. It simply does not work. It is always busy line. After about 10 minutes, I got through and not surprisingly, they don’t have any taxi available. The whole city seems to stop working for me. Wendy waited for a taxi for about one hour before she got one.

Winter comes, and people’s life should get tougher in Shanghai.

Ashamed? No

I saw comments on my previous entry Lining Up for Metro?. I saw the same thing, but I feel the different way.

Seeing the bad things in China does not affect my proud of my nationality. There must be optimistic people within a country to try everything he/she can to help, or make progress (no matter how small it is). A real confident nation, just like a confident person, should not shy away from facing the bad things.

For example, history is part of the identity of a country. By facing the history, no matter it is good or bad ,demostrates the confidence of the country. It is the same for the bad things.

I feel bad about people’s misbehavior, but I don’t feel bad to be part of the people here. Just because I care, I write, and I bring the topic. I hope more people care about what is going on, and encourage people to write about it and talk about it.

The only propose for this entry is to write down something to describe a venue – a cafe shop, that I can send the URL of this page to others so I don’t need to describe the location every time I make an appointment.

Location:

Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf,

1F, 666 Fuzhou Road

福州路666号一楼香啡缤咖啡馆

It is at the corner of Fuzhou Road, and Yunnan Road (福州路云南路路口). If you still have a sense of direction in the maze of streets, it is at east side of Yunan Road, and north side of Fuzhou Road (that is, the same side of Fuzhou Road as Raffles City, and opposite side of Yunnan Road).

Transportation

Taxi is the best way to get there. Just tell the taxi to stop at the corner of Fuzhou Road, and Yunnan Road (福州路云南路路口). It is in the People’s Square area, so it won’t be more than 20 RMB to get there from anywhere in the downtown.

If you take Metro, go to the People’s Square Station of either Metro Line #1 or Line #2 (it is the same station), and use exit #2. You will be at Raffles City, and the coffee shop is just 100 meters away.

Yesterday, at rush hours (6:30 PM), I waited at the Shanghai Metro #1 People’s Square Station. On the rear doors of the Metro, I noticed that people started to line up – there are two lines of people for the gate, and each line has more than 15 people, that makes the lines cross the platform and even near the other side of the platform.

No one was there to help maintain the order. The lines just formed by themselves. When the metro train came, people get off board from the middle – also formed a line, and the two lines of people entered one by one.

I was amazed by what I saw, because:

First, people started to respect orders,

Second, I didn’t see it in the last few years in Shanghai Metro. At least not to this extend that 15+ people forming a straight line.

I even wondered whether I am in Shanghai Metro. Lining up for Metro is the basic practices in many cities but not in Shanghai yet.

I am happy to see that started to happen. Although it is the only time, and they are just at several doors (other doors in the middle part were still at a mess), but it is progress.

Transition in China

When I was asked about the keyword for current China, I choose the word Transition.

Current China is about the old and the new co-exist. When the old system collapse, and the new system is not well established, it is the period of transition. People say bad things about China (poor, no rules, low moral), and people say good things about China also (prosperity, development, huge market), they are all partly true, but not complete. China is just in the transition period. The old and the new conflict with each other, compromise with each other, and finally mixed with each other, until a new order is established.

That is what I felt from small things like lining up. It takes time for this “rare” occasion to appear, but based on my experience, if the first “rare” occasion appears, after 5 to 7 years, it will be the standard.

If you ask me, I would say, it is very much the same as Gilroy Premium Outlets I visited in California. It has many stores, with the presence of major brands. Personally, I am more interested in Nike, Adidas, Levi’s…

The price is OK. It does not seem exactly like that in Gilroy, but pretty similar. Maybe the difference is tax – in U.S., all price is “pre-tax”, and in China, it is after-tax.

For example, Levi’s 501 jeans was like 29.99 USD in Levi’s factory store (seconds), and here, it is around 300-400 RMB. Nike shoes are from 390 – 590 RMB range, and in Gilroy, it is mainly like 25 – 35 USD.

To Get There

The location is like an outlets – I mean its location are very like the location of those outlets in U.S.

It is at Zhaoxiang/Sheshan 赵巷 佘山 exit of A9. Turn right and you will see the outlets just at the corner.

It is definitely a good place to buy genuine product. I feel some sense of the Xiang Yang Market there, but one is fake, and one is genuine.

Many People There

There is something completely different from the Gilroy Outlets – crowd. There are so many people there, and in one store, I even saw a big board with two sides. One side says:

“Welcome”

and the other said:

“Because there are too many people inside, now we are not accpeting new customers”.

OMG.

Update Update on Location November 28, 2006

The location is far from the downtown Shanghai. No Metro arrives there, or even close to it. It is 26 KM away from the People’s Square, and from my home, it is 45 KM, and takes about 30 – 40 minutes.

It is at the third or the forth exit of Shanghai to Huzhou 湖州 express way, A9. It seems the only way to get there is either by driving a car yourself, or taking tourism bus.

First morning, I felt challenge/fear as never experienced before. I learnt to focus on something else, and do the right thing, instead of focusing on the environment. Afternoon session, it was all about listening. I never heard people put listening and discover together. I realize if we our thinking is 100%, face to face communication only can convey 5% of it. By listening well, people can discover more than the 5% (with suspending agenda, focus, ask open questions, reflection )

On the Tuesday session, it was all about talking (in the formal term, Asserting or Inspiring). It is also the first time I heard people describe “Talking” as “Inspiring”. This is also the technique to convey more than the default 5% out of 100% of thought to another person. It is all about to have a statement, and say it in a concise, clear, and compelling way.

The beauty of the “listening – talking” or “discover – inspire” model is, it is about two way communication. If we can do it better for only one way, the two communications is much better.

The final orchestra tells me leadership is all about feeling instead of techniques. A group of people sit down together, and they can communicate without talking. It is more like a reflection of the nature of human being.

The solo and the chaos in the orchestra were amazing. By listening carefully, and react respectfully, people created a very special atmosphere that they can communicate and behave as one person.

To conclude, I appreciate everyone’s share and help me to share. It is OK to be vulnerable, and seek for help.

In the last week, the whole week, I didn’t take any pictures in Chaminade Hotel in Santa Cruz. The week was so intense that all my time, including nights were used up. I did manage to take severl photos (when it is not too dark outside). Here they are:

Chaminade seems to be a famous place. When I am back, Haisong told me he was also in the same hotel one week ago, for the Young Leader’s Forum (from National Committee of US. Chinese Relationship). How interesting that Haisong also jumped from the same pole as I did.

The Pole

Regarding the pole, it is a wooden pole about 10-20 meters high. People are required to climb onto the top of it and jump to touch the small ball. That needs a lot courage to do it. See some photos from the YLF (not me, or my group).

It is a great book, and O’Kelly has a great story – a cruel but warm story. As CEO of KPMG, O’Kelly knew he only had 3 months of life, and wrote the great book. Maybe O’Kelly will be known not for his role as head of KPMG and his 30 years service to the company, instead, he will be known about this great book which inspired many people, including me.

Circles of Friends

On the page 105 of the book, O’Kelly drew a diagram about his friends that he need to unwind.

Image in courtesy of Eugene O’Kelly, and Amazon

I had hard time to recognize his handwritting, and finally I figured out the five layers of friends:

Outtermost circle: People who because of shared experience or shared passion.

Then: Business Associates

Then: Lifetime Friends

Then: Immediate Family

Then: Children

Then: Wife

O’Kelly spent about 3 weeks to say good-bye to the 1000+ friends in his outercircle. He spent enough paragraphs explain why he need to unwind all his relationships. He wanted to spend one more Perfect Moment with his friends and recall all the Perfect Moments he had with his friends. This is beautiful! He just touched the deepest and sweetest part of human nature – to cherish all the great experience, and to refresh the warmth from friendship.

On page 171, his wife asked him: “Are you prepared to leave me?”

“I think so,” he replied.

When I read about this, my heart is broken.

I would highly recommend everyone to read this book. It is not a big book. It helps to understand the meeting of life, and the value of relationship.

I have my Circles of Friends

I am also writing down a list of my relationship in my circles, and I am sure I also have 1000 friends. O’Kelly reminds me how long people get together is not a big issue, it is all about the great moment we had shared. After I create this list, I will look at each of the name and spend some serious time to recall the great time and the perfect moment we have. It must be a very enjoyable time.

From the first day of this blog, I tried to seperate my blogging world from my business world. This is the intention, although sometimes the two worlds run into each other. This does happen, since there is natural connection betwen the two worlds – it is all about me.

Rumors

I am happy that in the last two days, the rumors finally stopped, or a better way to describe it, “faded out from the homepage of major portal sites”. This let me rest for a while and describe to my readers (in the blogging world) about what happened (without concerning too much to my friends in the business world).

Here is how the rumor started.

On Nov 20, the second day I am back to Shanghai, Donews.com reported that Allan (CMO of Google Asia) will join Bo and me to startup a new eCommerce site, and I will quit Kijiji to join the company.

This is definitely a rumor, but I was still impressed about how the news was pickup by all major portals in China and various versions of the same report appeared everywhere in 24 hours.

When Sina.com, Sohu.com put the news to major locations, and some paper media picked up and printed it out, the rumor became a big rumor. Just now, when I searched about my name, there are 114 articles in Google News about this quitting stuff.

Later, Google confirmed Allan’s quit, and there came more buzz around it. Combined with other market speculations, market analysis got some interesting results. (Like in my previous post, I don’t want to quote or give links here).

Impact on Me

It does have some impact on me. The day when I posted my previous entry, I worked with media to decline the news and to explain about the strategy of Kijiji for the next year. After an in-depth interview with Sina went out, and some short report of the decline came out from Donews.com, and Sohu.com, the part about me was settled.

It is not a media crisis for me. Rumors are just rumors and it does not hurt.

I am Still with Kijiji, Happily

I am still with Kijiji, the start up within a big company. I am as passionate as I started it in China one and half years ago. I love the product, I love the concept and most importantly, I do enjoy the great team I have here, and the super talented people in the team. I am not quitting, for sure.

“The Rumor Values”

I got some phone calls, some SMS, one or two emails and many MSN Messenger chats. — I did want to change my MSN display name from “No Longer Happy New Year” to “Rumors….”, but it is only two months to the end of this behavior art work, I still kept my MSN Display name unchanged (for a year).

One of the most interesting SMS I got was from Rex. Rex said: “Jian Shuo, congratulations! You finally get some rumor value.”.

I replied: “What do you mean by rumor value?”

He said:

The rumor value is the value people get from creating, and spreading rumor about a person. Not very one has this kind of rumor value. So congratulations :-)

Well. This message comfortable me a lot. It is not completely a bad thing, anyway.

I wish I still have the freedom to choose topics that interest me most. Thanks for giving me the freedom to do that. I know the topics are not always interesting for everyone. Anyway, I am still the most important reader of this blog. Everything I write? at least it should look interesting to me.

Just as this case, when a banch of media are calling me, calling my PR agency to dig more details about the news, I cannot disclose anything about it before we done some communication (internally and externally). The best way, or the professional way is not to mention it, confirm it, or decline it (considering media need to be the first to report this, instead of a blog). This was the background. There are so many things in my life with tons of background information that I cannot convey to my readers.

The note is for me, personally. I want it to remind me after several years about this interesting event.

It is also for friends who care about me – to assure them I am doing well, and it may also to some journalists. :-)

However, it is NOT for my regular readers. This is the rare occasion my role as a public business person in the competitive market run into my role on this blog – as a normal person living in Shanghai, and to help visitors and expats in Shanghai to get more sense about the city, and to find some fun (sometimes).

People said it is OK to stop for one day or two. I am not so sure about it. For me, a blog is all about life, and it is like the pulse of heart-beat. I am a believer that at least by posting a “OOB (Out of Blogging)” let people know what is going on, and let myself about what happened that day, instead of a blank memory. Blogging is like exercise. If you quit for one day or two, it is not easy to pickup after two days – for me, blog is more like a habit, instead of professional writing. I am not worried about the blog being “quickly kicked out the blogosphere”. To be honest, I don’t care about blogosphere. The most important thing is all about me, and my life. My life continues with or without attention from “blogosphere”. It is the every happy day I have that matters. I value interaction, and I value good friends I got from the blog. There is nothing to do with popularity, or fame here.

P.S. I am NOT going to Google. Never thought about it. I was with Microsoft and saw the spirit when Microsoft undertook the hardest time (the DOJ case). It is all about how people react with difficulties that shapes a great company, instead of how people behave under glory and fame. I don’t like Google now. Just my 2 cents.

Disclaimer: The post is provided “AS IS”. It is just my personal view and does not represent the point of view of anyone else or any organization/company.

The Internet industry in China is exactly like entertainment industry. There are rumors after rumor. I have to decline the rumors around for the day, and was really surprised to see my name involved in news articles…

I am back to Shanghai. Nice flight. I am not sure whether the trip was too intense for me or something else, I slept so well on the plane and was not aware of what happened during the trip. I wake up a little bit, wrote about 18 emails, and fell a sleep again. I managed to wake up about 14 minutes before departure, when the land of Shanghai is clearly in my sight again.

For the first time in my life, I had a seat on the second floor of Boeing 747. The seat number is 18H. It has a nice closet on the right hand that you can put all your package into. I enjoyed the seat so much.

Meanwhile, I suddenly missed the sofa outside the conference room of Chaminade – the light brown sofa facing the pacific, and with sun-shine directly pouring down. Combined with jet lag, and intense day, I could easily fell asleep on that sofa – I told Micki that it is my paradise. If there is one facility I miss most in Chaminade, it is the sofa.

Jet Lag

Getting back is much easier. Even a sleep cat as I waked up early in the morning. Managed to keep on bed until 6:00 AM, and I finally got up. 5:50 AM is a magic time for people in Shanghai. 5 minutes ago, it was completely dark, as dark as night, and now, lights came out (what an amazing thing), and I can recognize trees and flowers (there are still some) in my garden. So let me take some time to write some emails back to the friends (very close friends now) I met in the last week.

I will head to office in about one and half day. Wendy had a training program just beside the office building I work, AND they offer free parking. We decided to leave early today, to match up with the worse and worse traffic on Nanpu Bridge.

Nice to be Back

Although I enjoyed the trip so much, and enjoy meeting nice guys within and outside eBay in the Bay Area, it is still the best to be back to home, and sit near my garden.

I completed the amazing five days in Chaminade in Santa Cruz. What a journey it is! It takes some time for me to reflect and recap what I have experienced with the team, but there is no doubt that it was such a unique experience for me personally, and it placed big impact on me. Due to confidentiality requirement, I cannot explain more in details about what I did, but I will sumarize the learnings in the next few weeks on the blog. Now I am just too tired to keep my eyes open. When I feel really sleepy after 22:00, I know my jet lag completed go away. What a exciting news for! But the bad news is, I am flying back to Shanghai tomorrow. I will drive from Santa Cruz (nice place, but I didn’t have the time to visit downtown and the beach yet) to SFO. I will need to adjust the time zone again. These weeks will be tough since I am flying between Shanghai and San Francisco back and forth at interval of 10 days – the date for me to completely get rid of jet lag. :-) It is part of life, isn’t it?

Common sense is not always common, and sometimes it does not makes sense.

– Or to put it in a clearer way, Common sense is not always common among different people, and sometimes some one’s common sense does not makes sense to another person.

– It is hard to be intimacy without being vulnerable.

– Tell the gap

– Ask What if, or What else questions

– Deliver the key message earlier.

Three days of Role Play and One night of Fire

At night, gathered around the fire. The mountains are still, and the Santa Cruz downtown is at the foot of the hill, and the sea shore extends to the horizonal line.

It is very funny time. I enjoyed the role play in the leadership development program. It simply is very helpful. The bad thing is, I don’t have Internet access, or even no mobile access. The wireless, and wired Internet access infructure there does not mean I can or want to take a break to use it from the wonderful discussion.

P.S. The Amazon book finally delivered to the hotel. Nice, and it is the first time I ordered some book (and ship it to U.S. address!) Including in this package, there is the book Chasing Daylight. I believe it will be interesting.

P.S. 2. I continue to act as the bridge for America and China. Tonight I heard some true Chinese story from peoples in America. It was educational for me and offered a different perspective. To use another angel to see the same country is so interesting, and inspiring.

P.S. 3. I just heard that in a private land in U.S., if it is large enough for cars, the land owners and his family can drive cars on the land without a driver’s license. This is amazing. Is it true?

Nice talk. It was so lovely presentation that I watched it three times.

I have been a reader of Mena since 2002. She is such a great writer, and a presenter (which I just discovered). She restated the meaning of a blog and how it impact people’s life. I found it is very helpful for me at least, to remind me that a blog is all about keep some record about your life to help you to understand your life, even your children, or grandchildren about your life. This is very inspiring thinking, isn’t? I encourage everyone to watch the video.

Mena started to take a picture of herself – this looks stupid (as stupid as I write a blog everyday), but it does help to create a record of someone’s day!

My Record

Santa Cruz is amazing, and people around is more amazing. By looking at the profiles of people around me, I just cannot believe so talented and experienced people gathered in the same room, and really chat and role play to understand the leadership style of everyone. That is great.

I like the Sunshine of California. Although it is much colder to be in the mountains of Santa Cruz, it is still so warm in the afternoon, that I threw myself into the nice soft outdoor sofa in the noon, and within 30 seconds, I felt asleep. Seriously, within 30 seconds!

There are several services that I very seldom use in China, but I use it frequently in the bay area.

1. Google Map and Driving Direction

I don’t use map as frequently as here. I need to check Google Map once or twice every single day to get driving directions. In Shanghai or even in other cities in China, to check an online map is just for fun – to checkout something I am so familiar and see what the map says.

2. Local sites

It is the same meals. I need to check out a restaurant first before I go out. In Shanghai, I only need to set an area, and there are so many restaurants there. Here, you have to get a restaurant first so you know your driving direction.

3. Voice Message

I start to leave voice messages when the person I call didn’t answer the phone immeidately. I am still not used to this kind of “non-instant” communication, but it seems to be the common way to do it. In Shanghai, people seldom uses voice message – we just try to dial again.

P.S. Route CA-17

Route CA-17 from Los Gatos to Santa Cruz is still scary for me. I can drive at daytime, but at night, it is so scary for me – nothing just two lines of dots winding around before you, and you have to be fast – 55 – 60 miles/hour seems much more faster than it actually is.

For some reason, I lost some contacts in my address book (maybe due to synchronization problems), and I am able to recall the email address or other contact information for some of my friends in bay area. I’d like to drop a small note to you, but I didn’t. For example, Carroll and Jim, I’d like to pay a visit, but it turned out not possible on this trip. Please drop me a mail for your email address again? I just feel so bad that I lost it.

Buck’s Restaurant seems really popular. We went there for lunch, saw many people waited in line and it would take 40 more minutes to get a seat. Finally gave up.

I saw the Google Plate Tina talked about, with a tag line: “We are too dumb to buy Google stock, but we bought the plate”.

University Cafe at University Ave

Stayed for the whole afternoon in the university cafe. It is not bad. The next time, I can directly arrange some meetup there. Good place – I love the orange juice. :-)

Today, I finally formed some basic idea about the roads in Palo Alto. University ave is east side extension of Palm Dr, and Sand Hill Road is a major road connecting El Camino Real and 280. University Ave. also connects US 101.

Silicon Valley is a great place to meet people – smart people, entrepreneurs, VCs, and techies, geeks… I didn’t really get it for the first few trips to the Bay Area. Although I visited most high tech companies, the most fun part of being in the Bay Area is to spend time with People! Tina and Jin are obviously among the interesting and inspiring people in the valley.

Started with a Short Drive, and Entered a Closed Cafe

Jin joked why Stanford students work hard since all the restaurants and bars, and cafe close early. We went to one on El Camino Real only to find out it is closed. Closure of business at 6:00 PM seems an unreasonable time for me. It is especially so for a tea house.

Then we moved to the University Ave., THE street of Stanford. Last time I went there was with RC. There ARE some bars there, and they are pretty crowded, with even long waiting lines outside. Stanford students do have some place to go on Friday night.

I settled down at Coupa Cafe. Elliott put it as the first recommendation when we choose the meetup place for tomorrow. It was really nice!

Topics

We chatted a lot of topics, and many of them are interesting. For example:

History of Palo Alto -> Stanford -> Foreign International companies in China -> Trespassing -> Vote of BART extension -> Six Apart and Husband/Wife business -> VCs -> Sand Hill Road and VCs on it -> HYSTA (Hua Yuan Science & Technology Association) -> Community and Circles of Friends of Innovation/Startups -> GSR and NLVC -> Life in the Bay Area -> Logistic of McDonald/P&G/Starbucks -> Failure and Success of Microsoft China -> Google in China? ->Stages of a Startup -> Types of VCs (Grand Hytta type?)…

Anyway, there are a lot of topics, and I should definitely write some articles to summarize the thoughts of my visit to the Valley. I start to feel the value of the Silicon Valley – the inspiration, the people, and the network just stress people to think (think out of box), and generate new ideas one by one.

Let me write it up.

Tomorrow? Whole Afternoon in University Cafe

Tomorrow, I will have lunch in Buck’s Restaurant at I-280 and Woodside Road. After that, I will be at this location from 1:30 PM to 5:30 PM:

University Café

271 University Ave

Palo Alto, CA 94301

In case anyone want to drop by, you are welcome.

UpdateNovember 11, 2006

I may leave University Cafe earlier, like 5:00 PM. If anyone plans to come, please notify me in advance by posting a comment on this page. I will check it before I leave the University Cafe via GPRS (roaming mode) on my mobile phone.

The eBay Park on Hamilton Ave is a great place. I had full day meeting with buddies here, and it was nice. I found out some good food in the cafeteria – chicken with steamed rice. It is so nice to finally find some food I enjoy.

Meeting with Friend at Night

I managed to drive from Hamilton Ave up to Sushitomi Restaurant in Mountain View. Silicon Valley has so many small cities like Mountain View, which is basically one central avenue (Castro St). I have been to this area for three times, so is pretty familiar. The only problem with my drive is, I spent more than 10 minutes to get to CA-17 at Hamilton just because I missed the entrance from east to west, and have to get a U-turn in the Friday traffic on Hamilton. So the finally trip was more than 30 minutes.

Public Lecture on Stanford? I Missed It

What I planned for the night? I went to Stanford to listen to the lecture from Anousheh Ansari, called A Journey to the International Space Station. The lecture was held on the Stanford campus, at Kresge Auditorium, Stanford University.

Why I go there? Stanford is my one of my dream university, and since I am in town, why not visit the campus (again). I saw the poster about the event in a Iran grocery store near eBay campus yesterday, and decided to go. My friend Michael Stephanblome said something like “Why bother check out buildings in a city? Check out the people!”. It is very to the point that it makes much more sense to me to attend a lecture in person on the campus than wondering between the buildings.

Wrong Way! Took 1 Hour to Get There

Imagine how long I took to get to Stanford? One hour from Mount View. What a shame. I didn’t bring detailed map with me. I have no problem locating Stanford at all, but to get to the right Auditorium is just a big challenge. The campus looks like a maze for me. Finally, I got back to the Palm Dr – the famous entrance that I can recognize, made a U-turn at the end (wrong way), and then move east bound, until I hit Campus Dr. I followed the Campus Dr to Serra St back to El Camino Real (wrong way again) where I came from, realize it until I reached Page Mill Rd, and U-turn back to turn to Serra St, Campus Dr E again. Anyway, you know how hard it was (and how stupid I am).

Finally I spent about 10 minutes to park – how come Stanford had so many cars on Friday night! Do the student really study so hard?

Full! The Waiting List Seemed Full Too

When I get to the gate of the Kresge Auditorium, the lecture already started for 1 hour. It is about the story of Anousheh Ansari

, the first female private space explorer. I cannot mistake the auditorium since there are so many people outside it – looked pretty like a social event.

To my disappointment, the guard didn’t allow me to enter (no surprise – why all other guys waited OUTSIDE?). He said it is absolutely full – there was even no standing spaces. People outside were waiting for some one who leave, so they can enter.

This is to my surprise that a public event on campus attracted so many people, and they waited outside for one hour.

So, finally, I saw a nice auditorium, and get some idea about Stanford – I practically created many of the road on campus (without a map).

I followed the advice from my friends and books not to sleep at day time no matter how sleepy I am, and wait until night to go to bed. According to the advice, this is the only way to get rid of jet lag. This theory is widely accepted, and practices. I followed the instruction every time – to stay awake for the first day, but still just suffer so much from it

This time, I felt really sleepy as soon as I get out of the airplane. I drove to San Jose, had Vietnamese noodle and went to hotel. This time, the first I did was to go to bed and slept. At around 9:00 AM Shanghai time (5:00 PM San Jose), I wake up, had dinner, and get back to bed to sleep again.

The next morning, I wake up (I didn’t wake up in the middle – I am the sleep guy anyway). What a magic! For the whole day, I didn’t feel anything – no jet lag, and I am still refreshed for the whole day – I even didn’t noticed that I am in another time zone.

Finally, I found out my cure to jet lag – to sleep as much as possible, instead of staying awake for the first day. It may also work for other guys who likes sleep.

A conclusion: do not aways listen to what others say. Try it yourself. It is a shame that I just found it out after so many times of international travel.